Funding
EMP is funded through the Horizon2020 programme of the European Commission.
Selected Publications

Colloquium: Heavy-electron quantum criticality and single-particle spectroscopy

S. Kirchner, S. Paschen, Qi. Chen, S. Wirth, D. Feng, J.D. Thompson, Q. Si

Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) and scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) have become indispensable tools in the study of correlated quantum materials. Both probe complementary aspects of the single-particle excitation spectrum. Taken together, ARPES and STM have the potential to explore properties of the electronic Green’s function, a central object of many-body theory. This review explicates this potential with a focus on heavy-electron quantum criticality, especially the role of Kondo destruction. A discussion on how to probe the Kondo destruction effect across the quantum-critical point using ARPES and STM measurements is presented. Particular emphasis is placed on the question of how to distinguish between the signatures of the initial onset of hybridization-gap formation, which is the “high-energy” physics to be expected in all heavy-electron systems, and those of Kondo destruction, which characterizes the low-energy physics and, hence, the nature of quantum criticality. Recent progress and possible challenges in the experimental investigations are surveyed, the STM and ARPES spectra for several quantum-critical heavy-electron compounds are compared, and the prospects for further advances are outlined.


Rev. Mod. Phys. 92, 011002 (2020)

doi: 10.1103/RevModPhys.92.011002

arxiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.13293